“Villager” by Tom Cox

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I read this book for a book club and hadn’t got more than two thirds of the way through when we sat down in a large circle to enjoy discussing the book. I raved about the amazing delicately funny writing in the book (“Memory is a shy magpie” just thrown out and walked away from) and the 300 or so characters and the opening chapter written by the large landmark — a tor — that stands above the Dartmoor village of Underhill and watches the people and the artist Joyce Nicolas who pops up (with her best painting) in other parts of the book, although in common with the extremely unfamous 1960s musician RD McKendree, nobody gets the attention they deserve for their art, nobody gets famous, and then we’re off across the golf-course, chasing a lad called Mark and his friend and Mark could have been a champion golfer but got sideswiped by protest and of course…

Actually it’s exhausting.

The opinion of the book club was resolutely against. There was too much about the unheard musician and his one wonderful recording. What was the second to last chapter called Search Engine (2099) about? Even the twee map of the village looked like it had wandered in from a children’s book c 1978.

I took it home from the book club and finished it about two days later. What was it that made a lively funny beautifully-written…